The Discovery
Meet the Dragon Man. So, there’s this Brazilian anthropologist and 3D designer named Cireco Moraes who’s been up to some cool stuff. He recently worked his magic to reconstruct the face of an ancient human called Homo longi. Now, this reconstruction is based on a skull found in Harbin, northeast China, back in 1933.
The Scoop on Homo Longi
Homo longi was chilling in Asia during the middle Pleistocene era, you know, way back when. The skull from China’s Harbin region is estimated to be around 148,000 years old. That’s a serious throwback.
According to Moraes, the dating using uranium series puts this fossil at around 148,000 years old. And here’s the kicker – the skull is larger than any other ancient human noggin.
Dragon Man: The Ancient Headliner
This ancient human got a bit of a fancy nickname – Dragon Man. Imagine that, a dragon in human form! This Dragon Man dude was probably less than 50 years old when he kicked the bucket. They stumbled upon his skull during a bridge construction project over the Songhua River in Harbin, a city known for being one of the coldest places on Earth.
Sadly, due to some not-so-systematic handling of the discovery, they kinda lost track of exactly where and how deep this fossil was buried. Oops.
The Big Skull Energy
Now, let’s talk about the skull itself. It’s not your average human-sized dome. Nope, it’s larger, longer, and not as round as our modern human skulls. The braincase is a bit elongated, giving it a unique look. The Harbin skull’s volume is estimated to be around 1,420 ml, which is pretty close to the brain capacity of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens. It’s also bigger than the brains of earlier Homo species.
Face Reconstruction Magic
Moraes didn’t just stop at admiring the skull. He went full CSI mode with a computerized tomography (CT) scan on the Harbin skull, comparing it to Homo sapiens, Homo erectus, and even chimpanzees. Measurements and comparisons galore!
Using the complete Homo erectus skull, Moraes managed to reconstruct the missing parts of Dragon Man’s jaw and teeth. He even used the remaining teeth as a guide to align other missing ones and the tooth sockets in the upper jaw. It’s like putting together a prehistoric puzzle.
Forensic Face Guessing
Now, here’s the cool part – the face reconstruction. Moraes explains it as a forensic face estimation technique. It’s like creating a face when there’s not much info to go on, kind of like a facial detective. To get the face right, he had to reconstruct the missing jaw and teeth. It’s like playing facial archaeologist.
The Grand Reveal
So, after all the scanning, measuring, and reconstructing, Moraes finally revealed the face of Homo longi, the Dragon Man. The details were published in the OrtogOnlineMag journal. It’s like bringing an ancient dude back to life, at least in digital form.
In a nutshell, we’ve got this Dragon Man from way back, and thanks to modern tech and Moraes’ skills, we’ve got a peek into what he might have looked like. Who would’ve thought ancient skulls could be so intriguing? History meets CSI, and we get a face to go with the name – Dragon Man, the ancient headliner.
